


Kindred Instruments

by Masu_Trout



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Developing Relationship, Explosions, F/M, M/M, Mission Fic, Multi, Post-Canon, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-08-09 16:04:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7808281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masu_Trout/pseuds/Masu_Trout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of Shinra's fall, AVALANCHE is tasked with cleaning up the many messes the company left behind.</p><p>For Cloud, Tifa, and Barret, that mostly translates to killing monsters and blowing things up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kindred Instruments

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a little drabble thing for my OT3, and then it just sort of grew.

Tifa came squirming out of the wreckage of the building thirty seconds after it blew, shoving great chunks of rubble out of her way to clear a hole big enough for her to crawl out of. Cloud's heart had stopped somewhere around the fifteen second mark, and the sudden relief that coursed through his veins at the sight of her was almost too much for him to handle.

Barret was feeling the same way, by the look of him: he had his good hand pressed up against his chest like he was checking everything still worked. 

"If you have a heart attack here," Cloud said, "I'm not carrying you back."

That seemed to get him back to normal—he glared at Cloud and gave him a rather rude gesture before hurrying over to Tifa's side. Cloud followed a few steps behind, eyes out for anyone who might have been drawn to the sound of the explosion.

"Goddammit," Barret said, grabbing onto one of her arms to help haul her out, and then, " _Goddammit_ ," louder. Terror was fading and, with Barret, anger was usually what followed. "The fuck did you think you were doing, setting the fuse that short? You even check the damn thing before you set it off?"

Tifa nearly snarled at him. Soot and ash was smeared across her face, her arms, her legs, every visible part of her body. The palms of her hands looked scraped raw, but as far as Cloud could tell she didn't have any broken bones or badly-bleeding wounds. First aid could wait until they all got to safety.

"Come on." He threw an arm around Tifa, dragging her upright and walking with her the few steps it took for her to get her feet back under herself properly. 

The moment she could walk under her own power, she was up against Barret's side. He might have had a good half a foot on her—on both of them, much as Cloud hated to admit it—but Tifa could out-glare even a gagighandi. Barret flinched back from the force of the anger burning in her eyes.

"Do you know," she hissed, voice deceptively soft, "how difficult it is to set a fuse to detonate properly when you have a _horde of nightmare abominations_ coming after you?"

Cloud knew better than to get in between the two of them when they were arguing, but he couldn't help himself. “You wouldn't have had a horde after you if you'd let one of us come in as backup.” 

Tifa sighed, slow and tired, and some of the anger fled her body with the gesture. “We talked about this,” she said.

“We did.” Barret, this time, and Cloud was glad to have him on his side for this argument. “Doesn't mean we haf'ta like it, though.”

In the aftermath of what Reeve was calling the Meteor Event (and what Yuffie had apparently dubbed The Day We Beat the Big-Ass Nightmare Rock From Space and Fucked Up Sephiroth, if her last text to him was any indication), Shinra had been left with a whole lot of unused laboratories—and, it seemed, a whole lot of murderous experiments just waiting to claw their way out and terrorize the locals.

(“Typical Shinra,” Barret had snorted when he heard, and Cloud couldn't disagree.)

Reeve was all for clearing out the monsters with the minimum damage possible, preserving the research and the supplies within for future study. He'd turned to AVALANCHE for the task, though—the core of AVALANCHE, even, the ones who'd been there back before they had a common goal beyond _fuck Shinra_ —and so he was just going to have to live with the results he got. 

…The results he got being mostly exploded monsters and exploded buildings. It had been a while since any of them had gone on a proper bombing run, but old habits died hard.

They took turns on who orchestrated the actual destruction, but mostly the detonations were Tifa's job: she was the one who'd paid the most attention to Jessie's lessons, and she was the one who had the knowledge of architecture necessary to be able to plant the bomb in exactly the right spot to make sure it turned everything-bar-nothing to rubble. 

Barret and Cloud found themselves regulated to crowd control more often than not; the two of them made sure none of the monsters could escape the blast radius before Tifa's work was done. It was necessary work—even a single escapee could easily raze a small village—and it was difficult work, but it was nothing approaching the danger Tifa put herself into each time she slipped inside.

Waiting for her always made Cloud's blood go cold. He couldn't help but fear that _this time_ would be the time she didn't make it out.

“We can talk about it later,” Cloud said. Not that he thought anything would change, but if it took some of that heavy, looming tension off of Barret's shoulders it would be worth it.

“Or”—Tifa's eyes darted back and forth between them, a hint of a smile curling at the corner of her mouth—“we can go find someplace with a proper bar and get drunk off our asses.”

Barret snorted. “Not a chance. You'll just spend the whole time whining 'bout how bad their menu sucks.”

“ _Not even a single Costa del Sol ale_ ,” Cloud complained, pitching his voice in a poor imitation of hers, “ _And who do they think they're fooling, calling this a '67 vintage?_ ”

“Oh, fuck you, I do not sound like that!” Tifa swiped halfheartedly at Cloud, and he jumped sideways in order to avoid a blow that certainly would have knocked him over.

“You're right, Tifa,” Barret said. Before Cloud could glare at him (the traitor), he added, “You're a lot worse than that.”

Cloud didn't quite laugh, but he was startled into a little half-cough. It made Barret grin as if he'd managed to send Cloud into a fit of hysterics.

Tifa looked up from the uneven path long enough to roll her eyes at both of them. “If it bothers you that much, why don't you make me shut up?” Her voice dropped lower, quieter. There was something almost like a purr in her words. “I'm sure you can think of a way.”

 _That_ stopped both of them in their tracks.

“Ah,” Barret said, a little helplessly. Cloud could feel his cheeks burning.

They hadn't ever really discussed the three of them: things happened occasionally, when a mission ended up a little too close for comfort or when one of them woke up from a really nasty screaming nightmare and couldn't get back to sleep, but they avoided mentioning outside of the occasional awkward morning-after acknowledgment. 

It was easier to keep the equilibrium that way, easier to pretend there wasn't any way this fragile little arrangement they had could go suddenly and horribly wrong. Cloud had lost so much these past few weeks. ( _Months_ , his brain added, and then again, almost as an afterthought: _years_.) He didn't think he could stand to lose these two as well.

Still, it was a sudden fit of humor and not any attempt at avoidance that had him tapping at his chin and saying, as if deep in thought, “I'm not sure I brought my mastered seal materia with me, but I think I've got one stowed away somewhere that's leveled enough to cast silence…”

Barret's sudden laughter was loud enough to echo around them, and this time Tifa's angry swing did knock him off his feet. 

Cloud landed on his side in the dirt, his loosely-sheathed sword scraping against the ground. His palms stung, but he couldn't help but grin a little as he looked up at the two of them.

Tifa was exhausted but smiling, something between aggravation and affection in her eyes as she stared down at him. The soot covering her body left her looking almost monochrome, but it didn't diminish the glow in her expression any. Barret still roared with laughter; he might start drawing in monsters with the sound of it if he didn't quiet down soon. He'd taken a couple of shallow scrapes in their battle with the creatures, but a quick cure meant that they were already half-healed and beginning to scab up. 

Some of the fear that had been curled inside him since he saw the building go up with Tifa still inside loosened as he watched them. They were alive. They'd been fighting Shinra for years now; even when they lost their base and half of their own, even when they'd been chased across three continents and driven apart with all the force and fury a mega-corporation could offer, they hadn't given up. They'd fought Shinra and _won_ , and now they could stand together after cleaning up yet another of its atrocities and laugh about drinks and materia.

“Assholes,” Cloud grumbled, as fondly as he could manage, and hauled himself up to his feet. It took a step or two before he found his balance once more—Tifa hit _hard_ —but soon he was back to making his way across the loosely-packed dirt towards the promise of civilization. “Come on,” he told them, “let's go get drunk. Or at least find somewhere with a working shower.”

If they did the paperwork right, they could probably charge it as a mission expense. Reeve's insistence on adhering to old standards could be _wonderful_ that way.

(And anyway, there was no question they deserved it.)


End file.
